


Three Strands

by PazithiGallifreya



Series: Fortune [3]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Family, Female Gimli, Gen, Genderswap, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 09:02:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5410928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PazithiGallifreya/pseuds/PazithiGallifreya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things may not be perfect, but life goes on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Strands

Hammer struck glowing iron rhythmically, sparks flying haphazardly about. The reverberation traveled up her arm, through her shoulder and neck, into her skull. Answering clangs, bangs and thuds echoed back from the other smiths scattered across the crafting hall. It was not an unfamiliar sensation, although it had been many years since she'd last done this. Thoughts of her childhood warmed her while the heat of the forges simply made her sweat.

It was more difficult than she'd remembered, not because she'd forgotten her tutelage in the art, but because she was constantly having to look over one shoulder to speak to Kuma, a young Blacklock dwarf who was the current head of the eastern forge-hall at Erebor, and having to look over the other to keep an eye on Cíweth, her daughter.

Her parents were away in Dale at the moment on some errand, so her usual habit of leaving Cíweth in their care when conducting this sort of business was unavailable, but some things couldn't wait any longer. She needed to speak to Kuma, but the smith would be leaving for Ered Luin soon to visit some or another cousin, and would not return for several months.

Her child was seated on the floor several feet away with a small hammer of the sort used to work silver or gold, that one of the apprentices had dug up from some corner. She was haphazardly smacking away at cold scraps of iron that had not yet been swept up to be melted back down for reuse. Cíweth sent them skittering across the room as often as not but delighted in the activity of making a great deal of noise indoors and not being told to hush.

Perhaps it was not the best sort of toy for the still somewhat clumsy small child, but Gimli judged it less of a hazard than leaving her bored and jamming her nose into the business of the dozens of blacksmiths across the expansive room, or burning her fingers out of curiosity on some no longer incandescent but still dangerously hot bit of steel.

Gimli had spent the entire morning among the forges of Erebor with her daughter trailing her. Although her own calling in life had been to that of the Warrior’s path, she’d had plenty of training with a hammer and anvil during her youth in Ered Luin and while not quite a master, she was more than competent as a blacksmith. She had been lending aid to Kuma and her master smiths and their apprentices for hours now, chatting (well, _shouting_ ) above the clamor, trying to befriend a few more of them, while simultaneously attempting to keep her daughter from causing too much mischief.

The child seemed to have an endless supply of energy these days and Gimli could not fathom where the lass could be keeping it all in that tiny body of hers. She was growing, perhaps not as swiftly as most dwarflings, but growing nonetheless. She was still a somewhat thin little thing, despite all of efforts of Gimli's parents to “feed her up” as they called it (more like “stuff the child full of sweets and send her home to bounce off of her parents' walls” by Gimli's judgement).

Gimli was nearing exhaustion at this point, but her future colony at the Glittering Caves would need such skilled dwarves – everything from horseshoes and nails to gratings and gates to plow blades and axe blades. It couldn’t hurt to be in the good favor of a few of them, even at this early stage of planning.

This was no mere blacksmith’s forge as is found among men, or even the small but elegant ateliers of the Elves - there were vast vaulted halls under the Mountain dedicated to every kind of metalcraft known in Arda, with massive chimneys tunneling up miles to exhaust the fumes of the forge-fires to the open skies, belching smoke and steam as though Smaug himself still lay under the mountain.

The people of Dale did not cower at this sight, though – the industry of the mountain enriched their marketplaces and freed up labor for their own primary source of income – the fruit of the fertile fields and orchards of the countryside surrounding the town and the Lonely Mountain.

Having been left untilled and untended for many years under the malevolent gaze of a dragon, they now yielded nearly double what old records had indicated. And though it had been only a few decades since Erebor had been retaken by the dwarves, Dale’s toy markets were once again becoming known throughout the region and beyond.

Gimli felt a tugging at her clothing and stopped mid-swing. Cíweth leaned against her leg, saying something that could not be heard above the din of the blacksmiths. Gimli laid the hammer down, turning to shout to Kuma.

“It must be nearing mid afternoon!”

Kuma grinned at her, swinging her own hammer down again. Cíweth pressed her face against her mother, hiding from the shower of sparks.

“You've done plenty for the day! Yer bairn looks tired, best take her home!”

Gimli bowed to Kuma, leaving the half-completed axehead where it lay. Kuma waved over an apprentice to continue the project as Gimli reached down to pick Cíweth up. Despite all the heat and noise, the child was fast asleep before Gimli made it to the other end of the forge-hall.

 

ooooo

 

Now that the threat of Mordor was past, and a proper king upon the throne of Gondor, it seemed an era of peace and prosperity had finally arrived for those who still dwelled in Middle Earth – the perfect time, Gimli thought, for new things, such as the delightful(ly irritating) little imp currently perched on her belly and playing with her beard.

Gimli had unceremoniously chucked off her heavy boots next to the door of her home and stretched out on her back on an overstuffed, Elf-sized couch, trying valiantly to get in a late afternoon nap before her husband returned. He’d been away at Ithilien with the colony he had recently begun with some of his father’s people for the past month (and she tried her best not to feel envious that he'd already gotten a host of elves out to his colony before she'd recruited her first dwarf for Aglarond, but then, elves can sleep in trees and eat berries and nuts like a pack of squirrels).

Gimli had slept poorly the night before, as she often seemed to sleep poorly these days when her husband was away. It seemed so odd to her that she had spent nearly her whole life sleeping each night like a log with no trouble on her own, even in ditches and caves, and then after only a scant few years of marriage, she no longer cared to be parted from her husband for any length of time. She was getting spoiled, perhaps. Life was full of surprises these days, it seemed.

But Legolas would be home soon enough, and she would be compelled to rise and do something about getting supper together for her family. Legolas was a competent enough cook, but there was only so much elven cuisine she could stand (other than the wine he sometimes returned home with, which was generally excellent, as far as wine goes). Gimli rarely let him have their little kitchen entirely to himself. They often prepared meals together, with much grumbling and sniping as elbows and seasoning philosophies clashed in the small space.

Having napped soundly on the walk back through the halls of Erebor to their home, Cíweth now had other ideas for their afternoon, apparently.

“Darling, let your poor mother sleep a bit, _please_.”

The young girl draped herself over her mother, burying her round face and little fingers even further into her favorite soft, warm blanket that was Gimli’s thick red beard. Cíweth giggled as she breathed in deeply to catch the familiar scent of forge-smoke and iron that still lingered around her mother as Gimli started to drift off, finally.

 

ooooo

 

Gimli cracked open one eye and strained to look down at what her daughter had been doing while she’d dozed. Oh, dear, what a mess…

Cíweth had managed to undo her braids entirely and, apparently, was re-doing them in her own _imaginative_ fashion, including taking the ribbons out of her own hair and tangling them in with the rest of Gimli’s beads and adornments

“Ahhh! Look what you’ve done!“

“I’m makin’ you _pretty_ , amad!”

Gimli sighed and tried not to look too put-out. Cíweth’s small fingers had stilled for a moment, but she now went back to her attempts at winding handfuls of hair into tangles scarcely resembling braids.

“No, no! Stop, _stop._ ”

Gimli placed her hands gently over the small ones in her beard to still them, giving them a light squeeze and waiting until she (finally) had Cíweth’s full attention.

Gimli chewed at her lip and thought a minute. Maybe Cíweth was old enough now; her clever fingers certainly had no problem getting into trouble and breaking into all manner of things.

“Come now, do you want to learn how to braid _properly_ or not?”

Cíweth answered by way of giggling and pursing her lips, jamming an end of one of the “braids” she’d made in Gimli’s beard between her nose and her lips as a mock-mustache.

Gimli yanked the tangled hair back began undoing the stubborn knots, trying not curse in front of her daughter (the child had the infuriating habit of repeating _everything_ she heard sooner or later). Gimli pressed ribbons and beads one by one into Cíweth’s hands as she got them untangled.

That Cíweth’s beard had never come in was still something of a private grievance to Gimli, although she would never put voice to such feelings, not wanting to hurt her husband’s or daughter’s feelings over something that was nobody’s fault and not really all that important in the grand scheme of things. Nonetheless, Gimli’s family had been known for generations for their fine, thick beards and her daughter had apparently inherited none of it. _Well, such is life_.

Cíweth stuffed all the beads and ribbons into the pocket on the front of her smock and, in her impatience, had gone back to daydreaming and threading and combing her fingers through the ends of Gimli’s beard.

“Oh _do_ pay attention!”

Cíweth sniffled and looked up with a startled expression. Gimli was generally quite patient with her daughter (at least more so than she was patient with any other animate or inanimate thing on Arda, which was certainly testament to her love for her child), but the girl’s mind constantly flitted from one thing to another and wandered about without direction. She was certainly her father’s daughter as well, in that regard. Gimli chuckled to herself at the thought. Tch, _elves_.

“I know I can do it, amad, I _can_.”

“Of course you can, darling, but only if you _pay attention._ ”

Gimli groped around for another cushion, wedging it behind her head to see her work and her daughter both a bit better and began to re-do the first braid trailing down from beside her chin.

A thorough combing would not be amiss , but she didn’t have a comb on her at the moment. It would have to wait until the evening. It was about time for a wash as well, after the day spent sweating over an anvil, but that would have to wait. She could do up her customary braids in a matter of minutes in the morning, and undo them again before bed in even less time, but she worked slowly now, trying to let Cíweth’s eyes follow each strand over and under one another.

The braids in Cíweth’s hair were most often the work of her father (unless he was away on some errand) as she sat on his knees every morning after their breakfast, though done a bit thicker than customary for elvish braids, due to the sheer volume of Cíweth’s prodigious copper-blonde hair. What she lacked in beard she more than made up for in the thickness of her hair, which often defied her parents' attempts to keep it neat. She'd gotten her ringlets from her grandmother Unli and her mother and grandfather's reddish hue, mixed with a paler version of her father's honey-brown.

Gimli fixed the bead at the end of the first braid and separated the locks on the other side to begin the second braid.

“Okay, now it is your turn.”

Cíweth was hesitant at first and Gimli had to guide her movements for several minutes, but it wasn’t long before the child got the hang of it. She had trouble with the bead at the end but beads were always a bit fiddly anyway. Gimli was sure more practice would fix the problem. It was important for a dwarf to be able to do their own braids and, eventually, develop their own unique pattern.

 

ooooo

 

Legolas wound his way through the town of Dale as the shadows grew long with the coming of the evening, barely noticing the activity of the human residents and dwarven traders who milled about the town. He was moving swiftly and lightly over the dusty narrow cobbled, graveled or muddy packed-dirt streets despite his exhaustion, impatient to make his way home to his family in the mountain ahead.

Even the customary distrust on the faces of the guards at the gates of the Lonely Mountain could not slow him down. Like every dwarf in Erebor now, they knew the only elf in residence on sight, and let him pass without comment. It had taken some time to gain even a tentative trust of the dwarves of Erebor, at least those outside of his wife’s own kin, but he’d slowly befriended… well, _some_ of them.

Gimli’s honor and good standing counted for quite a lot, and kept him from being harassed, but respect isn’t quite the same thing as acceptance. There were still some of those who had been in his father’s dungeon, of course, although over half of them had long passed to their Maker’s halls. Gloin had forgiven Legolas entirely it seemed, and accepted him as a son (though probably only for the sake of Gimli’s happiness and no other reason; Legolas had no illusions about that).

While Dwalin’s goodwill had also at first seemed mostly a spiteful usurpation of Thranduil’s son after that first unhappy reunion, the dwarf seemed almost maybe genuinely fond of him now, although Dwalin would probably never admit it in mixed company.

Legolas rarely ran across Dori, who oversaw the provisions and supplies of the King’s court these days. Legolas had come to expect cool politeness from him, and nothing more – the old dwarf’s mood had been rather subdued since learning of his youngest brother’s death in Moria, and Legolas could not bring himself to feel sore over the apparent lingering hostility. His demeanor toward Gimli was only a little better and Legolas suspected that Dori somehow connected the former members of the Fellowship of the Ring to his brother’s misfortune, despite the fact that Ori had been long dead by the time they had discovered his dry bones and the crumbling book at Balin’s tomb.

Dori’s wayward brother, Nori, was rarely present at Erebor, and Legolas knew not whither the thief went when he was not present, nor did he care to find out, but more than one small item had disappeared from his person after their rare run-ins. Nori never took anything of significant worth, Legolas noted, and did not mention the rest.

Legolas would occasionally run across Bombur, Bombur’s wife, one of his prodigious offspring, or Bofur, while in Dale, and they generally ignored him unless he made a point of speaking to them or had Gimli or Cíweth with him. The larger dwarf had a popular restaurant at an inn in town, and the other cousin ran a successful stall in the toy market.

The eldest cousin, Bifur, spent most of his days at his Bofur's market stall carving his clever little animal toys as shoppers stopped to watch or walked by, happy enough with his craft but more or less indifferent to the world around him. Of the three cousins, however, he was the most responsive to Legolas, occasionally smiling up at the elf and saying something that, despite Gloin and Dwalin’s Khuzdul lessons, remained largely incomprehensible to him. Still, it was nice to be acknowledged, and Legolas occasionally brought him pieces of fine wood from his father’s realm for his work.

The sun was setting behind the Misty Mountains as Legolas entered, at last, the kingdom of Erebor. The cool air inside the mountain felt refreshing against his heated face and he breathed deeply as he made his way to his family’s home. He began to sing to himself in Sindarin, garnering a few suspicious looks from dwarves passing by.

The sight that greeted him upon entering his home was enough to dispel any lingering exhaustion from the road, however.

His daughter was seated on his wife’s lap, high-pitched laughing filling the room. Gimli’s hair and beard had more braids than he’d ever seen on a single dwarf, some more crooked than others, and at least four different colors of ribbons and dozens of beads in a riot over her head.

Legolas fell back against the doorframe, jamming his knuckles into his mouth and trying not to descend into hysterics as Gimli shot him a threatening glance.

“Ada, look! I made amad pretty!”

Legolas choked on barely withheld laughter, his face turning red in the effort.

“Yes, _very_ pretty!” 

Gimli lifted Cíweth and set her on the floor and rose from the couch, shooting her husband a glance that could curdle fresh cream. Suddenly her expression changed, turning into something rather more wolfish.

“Well, my little badger, perhaps after supper, you can make your ada pretty too!”

Cíweth grinned broadly as she skipped over to her father, reaching up to take hold of a strand of his long hair. Legolas’ grin took on a rather more forced look.

“But don’t you want me to tell you all about what I’ve been doing in Ithilien?”

Cíweth smiled innocently.

“I can do listening an’ braiding a’the same time, don’ worry, I can make you pretty too!”

Now it was Gimli’s turn to laugh, and she made no attempt at holding it in. Legolas felt just a little betrayed.

Gimli walked over and grabbed Legolas by the elbow and dragged him toward the kitchen.

“Take off those boots and come wash up, it’s time to start supper. Cíweth, you too, I don’t want you making a mess again while we’re busy.” (Cíweth had managed to “decorate” their home with ink and charcoal the previous week when left unattended for a few minutes, and Gimli was not in a mood to scrub the walls _again_ ).

 

ooooo

 

Later that evening Legolas found himself draped over Gimli’s lap and outstretched legs, his head propped on the arm of the sofa and his poor, abused hair in the slightly sticky hands of an overly enthusiastic child.

It would probably take _hours_ to undo the damage to their hair after they put Cíweth to bed… all that unbraiding, and combing, and brushing, maybe even a wash… hm, well, he could think of a worse way to begin their first evening together again after over a month’s separation.

Legolas smiled softly at Gimli and ran his fingers over his wife’s chaotic braids. He wrapped a warm hand around the soft skin of her nape and pulled her down for a kiss.

Legolas ignored the embarrassed giggles and outburst of “ewwwww, stop tha’ mushy stuff!” behind him and deepened the kiss. As their daughter squealed and ran out of the room, Gimli chuckled into her husband’s mouth and wrapped her arms tightly around him.

It was good to be back home again.

 


End file.
